


when being buried i'd prefer he be the dirt

by johniaurens



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Codependency, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Character Death, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 08:03:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6896863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johniaurens/pseuds/johniaurens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There's a difference between coping and scraping by that Alex hasn't figured out yet.</i>
</p>
<p>or, eight things alex knows</p>
            </blockquote>





	when being buried i'd prefer he be the dirt

**Author's Note:**

> i read a bad mental illness fic so i wrote this out of spite. in which both alex & john are me 
> 
> title from sunburns by fences kind of

i. Seeing someone kill themselves fucks you up.

They don't tell you this in advance. You find out yourself. 

Years later he still wakes up to feeling like he's the one under that train.

-

ii. John's father never beat him but there's scars on his body that just never seem to heal.

Alex doesn't ask and John doesn't tell but it's always an unspoken acknowledgment between them, the one room in the castle you can't go into, the one closed casket door, the silence that feels like a blanket sometimes. Tastes like dust. Tastes like blood stuck between teeth.

John, always exhaling, making room for other people inside of his own skin.

Alex, always inhaling. And flowers still won't grow in his lungs.

-

iii. John calls him beautiful when he's happy, when he's concentrating, when he's red-faced and breathing hard from yelling at Jefferson over something petty. Calls him beautiful when he's just woken up, when he's cooking with his tongue peeking out from between his lips, when he comes home after a run. John calls him beautiful when he laughs. Never when he cries.

There's some sort of logic to that, Alex knows, some sort of internalized knowledge about how easy it is to accidentally encourage someone into doing something they'll regret, some sort of dog training tactic based on positive reinforcement. Doesn't always work. 

Then again, you know what they say about old dogs and tricks.

-

iv. But god, he's never loved anyone in his life as much as he loves John, loves his galaxy-freckle cheeks and black copper wire curls, never loved anyone like this, this hard, this completely.

John: “Alex, you gotta cut yourself some slack. You're fine, you're good, you're enough.” In it: a wordless plea laced with terror for his health, for his lungs, for his heart. In it: “you've been up for two full days, please, please come to bed, baby.” 

Alex: “I love you more than anything, you know.” It's true, oh god is it true, but he's still never proud of manipulating John. Never. 

John, tight-lipped: “I know, baby, I know. I love you too, more than anything.”

-

v. John doesn't deserve it.

It's that sort of thing he doesn't want to talk about, ever, because he's that sort of person, the kind that doesn't want to compare sufferings because he knows how easy it is to go wrong with that, how easily it becomes a competition, how easy the slide from mostly okay to actively suicidal can be. 

John, kind John, sweet, pretty John with his swampy green eyes, eying him with worry every time he pays more attention to a sharp edged hand tool than strictly necessary like Alex is the one out of the two of them that'll put himself into a hospital with his own hands. 

“ _I'm_ not going to kill myself,” Alex snaps, too much emphasis on _I'm_ and John physically recoils, jaw clenching hard, looks utterly betrayed and it's a low blow and sometimes Alex just doesn't care. Gets tired of being treated like a baby bird.

-

vi. It's not John's fault that Alex still can't tell if he loves him or if he's just – using him, for _what_ , he doesn't know, but it's there, sometimes, the fear. It's not John's fault.

Except for when it is. 

No, it's – it's _not_ his fault.

-

vii. There's a difference between coping and scraping by that Alex hasn't figured out yet.

Coping is talking about why he still feels like he'll never be good enough. Coping is forcing himself to sleep for more than two hours a night. Coping is scheduling in a couple hours of extra therapy whenever he feels like getting to know the insides of his wrists a little more intimately even if he hasn't acted on those urges in years. 

Scraping by is waking up to recurring nightmares about a body in pieces on train tracks and never knowing whose it is this time.

-

viii. It works because they love each other.

Actually, it's a little more complicated than that – it works because they have built their bones around each other. It works because there's no end point. It works because it can't not work.

John kisses him just below his jaw one night when anxiety's keeping him awake for the third night in a row and he's in the middle of a rambling paragraph of comparing himself to a broken puppet, John tucks his greasy hair behind his ear, says, “baby, you're not broken, never say that.”

Alex leans into John, his birdcage ribs and freckled collarbones and all. “Beautiful. Not broken.”

“Beautiful,” Alex repeats, obediently, “not broken.” Kisses John's wrist over his pulse, feels it speed up, that rabbit-fast thrum of his blood.

Alex holds his wrist up against his mouth. Pretends he doesn't notice when John starts crying.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on tumblr @ lcfayctte


End file.
